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This is my story of how lucky I was to come through WW II, more or less unscathed.

Born in Sandy Bedfordshire on the 5/6/1922 the youngest of four, two boys and two girls and looking back after all these years, it seems that I must have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth. When the Second World War broke out on the 3rd of September 1939, I was seventeen years of age. My brother and many of his friends joined the Territorial Army in 1938 to get into a unit of their choice. This was instead of waiting to be called up, so they opted to join the 248 Field Company, the Bedford Territorial Company of the Royal Engineers. They were sent to France, and were unfortunate to have to evacuate from Dunkirk. After Dunkirk the call came for volunteers to join the Local Defence Volunteers, L.D.V. for short, later to become the Home Guard.

I duly joined the L.D.V. One incident comes to mind. During our training we were sent to go on the rifle range at RAF Henlow. I had been brought up by my father to handle a 12 bore shotgun. Dad was a market gardener and vermin were a scourge to us. This meant that I was a fairly good shot. The platoon leader organised for a kitty to be held, and whoever shot the best on the range would take all. I was the youngest and I was shooting against those who considered themselves to be far superior. I was not supposed to stand a chance! We put two shillings and sixpence in the kitty, twelve and a half pence in today’s money. I could ill afford this, it was half my week’s pay, and a lot of money in those days. Twenty-five of us shot, and as I scored 4 bulls and an inner I won the grand sum of three pounds two and sixpence. This did not go down very well with the rest of the platoon, but I treated them to a drink, and as beer was four pence a pint I still had a lot left over.

On the 28th of August 1940 I volunteered and joined the Young Soldiers’ Brigade, the 70th Battalion of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, and after our initial training we were posted to RAF Duxford, where we manned the perimeter defences, this job was later carried out by the RAF Regiment. The commanding officer of Duxford at that time being Douglas Bader, whose story of his exploits as a Spitfire pilot with the Duxford wing is well known. It also became a successful film, Reach For the Sky.

Having spent Christmas 1940 at Duxford, we were then moved on to RAF West Raynham in Norfolk, to carry out similar duties as at Duxford. It was here that my silver spoon first came to my aid. West Raynham airfield was only a few miles from the coast. We were often attacked by enemy aircraft. These roared across the airfield, machine gunning, bombing and disappearing as fast as they came.

One morning I was posted to guard the water tower, and was standing outside the blast wall, when I saw approaching, at a very fast rate, an air craft which did not seem to be one of ours. I shot behind the blast wall and into the tower just in time, as the bomb he dropped hit the ground at the very spot where I had been standing. After I had recovered from the shock, I went out and tried to pick up a piece of shrapnel to keep as a souvenir only to find that it was still red-hot. A few years ago I returned to West Raynham with my wife, and showed her the shrapnel marks, which still remain on the wall to this day.

The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regimental Headquarters Company was stationed at King’s Lynn. One of my duties was to drive our Officer Commanding into Lynn to attend conferences. This meant that I had to wait around quite a lot. I used to go into the Officer’s Mess cookhouse to get a cup of tea leaving my truck on the road outside. On returning to my truck, after having had some refreshment, a policeman was waiting for me. He booked me for not immobilising my vehicle. After a few weeks I was summoned to appear before the court in King’s Lynn, pleading guilty on the advice of my defending Officer and was fined 10 shillings. What a rotten thing to do to an eighteen year old soldier, of course I couldn’t pay the fine as our army pay was only two shillings a day. I had to send home for the money, my Father sent it to me so that I could pay the fine. This incident made me lose faith in the officers of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment. They told me to plead guilty, and that they would fight the case which they never did.

We went onto the rifle range at Swaffham, and once again I scored four bulls and an inner. An officer, with red tabs on his shoulder, asked me where I had learnt to shoot like that. I told him that I had been brought up with a gun in my hand, with that he enquired if I would like possible promotion, to which I replied no thanks! I think he was quite taken aback by my refusal, but I had no desire to become a sniper, which was what it would have probably have meant for me. It was no wonder that I refused his request, given their lack of support for me over the fine.

Meanwhile my brother, being six years older, had put in a claim for me to join him in the Bedford Territorial Company, the 248 Field Company Royal Engineers. In those days an older brother could claim a younger sibling into his unit. This was authorised, and I left West Raynham and moved to Barton Stacey in Hampshire to do my R.E. training. After having been taught how to handle explosives, bridging, wiring, mine laying and lifting, and the hundred and one jobs, that a sapper of the Royal Engineers has to know, I passed out. I went to join the 248 who had moved to East Walton. So back to Norfolk I went.

We were busy playing cards in a Nissan hut one night. A Dornier bomber that had been shot up, flew just over the top of the hut, and crashed into the woods about a quarter of a mile from our billet. We all rushed to where it had come down, but nothing could be done for the crew. They were all in the flames with ammunition exploding. They were obviously all dead. Next morning when we went to look, the dead Germans could still be seen in what was left of their plane. Some of our sappers took parts from the plane as souvenirs, only for the CSM to call everyone on parade. All of the parts taken had to be handed back. It then became known that the Dornier was the first of its type to be shot down over England.

We then moved to Scotland, to Comrie in Perthshire, where training was carried out in the hills, and after a short period we embarked on board the troopship Empire Pride. We sailed from Gourock in convoy to disembark at Algiers in North Africa. During the voyage we had a few U-boat scares, with the escorting destroyers dashing around, but we arrived safe and sound. Unfortunately I developed pleurisy and had to be admitted to the ship’s hospital. The Germans always greeted the arriving convoys with an air-raid, and we were no exception. I was down below, with all the noise of bombs falling and our guns sending up a barrage, and not feeling all that good, it was a relief to be transferred ashore and into the 36th General Hospital.

After a couple of weeks’ stay in hospital I was sent to a transit camp. Next door to the camp was a barbed wire emplacement, where deserters and other defaulters were imprisoned. They all had their heads shaved, and everything they did had to be carried out at the double. The poor devils had to run everywhere. One of our duties was to mount guard over these unfortunates, not a very nice duty, as we were not allowed any contact with them. In those days they were what we called bomb happy their nerves having gone. They could not take the stress and strain anymore, no sympathy was given to the prisoners, and the treatment dished out to them was deplorable to say the least. I was very relieved when my posting back to the 248 Field Coy RE came through.

While I had been in hospital my division, the First Infantry Division, had moved up to the front line in Tunisia. To join them I had to make a journey by a steam hauled train in cattle truck. These trucks usually held either 12 horses or in my case 30 men. We slowly travelled from Algeria to Tunisia over the Atlas Mountains with numerous stops, and wherever we halted Arabs were always there to try and sell us eggs, it us three days and nights to reach the railhead at Teboursouk. It was from here that I moved up to join my Company at the front, not far from Medjes El Bab, and what a reception! On arrival I tried to get some sleep. I was woken up with tracer bullets flying everywhere. Morning came and with it the news that the Germans had broken through. A terrific tank battle ensued. We were stuck in the middle, with shells flying back and forth. Tanks brewed up, with flames coming out of the turrets. It was a hell of a battle, luckily our tanks managed to hold the enemy, otherwise my first action could have ended in disaster. We moved up to Banana Ridge and dug in. The action continued with me firing a bren gun at enemy aircraft that were attacking our infantry. Dick Knox also a Bedford man was keeping me supplied with ammunition and filling the magazines. An empty cartridge case was ejected from the magazine and found its way down his shirt neck. This was red hot, he thought he had been hit, but he only received a slight burn. Shortly after two ME 109s came flying by so close, that we could see the pilots operating the controls. They were so near that I felt I could have knocked them down with a stick. Dick was yelling at me not to fire at them, in case they came back to shoot us up.

We continued in action taking Medjes El Bab. We found that the enemy had booby- trapped the majority of the houses which were still standing. The German engineers were very clever in laying booby traps and with his mine laying. He would make a deep crater in the road, and round the edges he would plant shoe mines. These were made of wood and were unable to be detected by our metal detectors. They were strong enough to blow your foot off. We soon got wise to this trick but it was the poor civilians trying to get across who came off worst.

We continued on towards Tunis, we captured a German stores at El Bataan, with bottles of rum and all types of ammunition. Many of the sappers found a good use for the rum. They were lifting teller mines from the roads. Unfortunately one was not found, which resulted in the track being blown off of one of out tanks. Luckily no one was injured but the tank commander was not amused. The enemy was very crafty when he laid teller mines. He would lay one on top of the other, joined together by a wire. If you lifted the top one without first locating the joining wire, you were unlikely to survive. I got hold of a large swastika flag and an Afrika Corps armband from those stores, and carried them with me wherever I went. I still have the armband but the flag is a story to be told later. On the way to Tunis we had to replace a bridge that the Germans had blown in an effort to hold up our advance. A triple triple Bailey bridge was built in its place .It was named Bedford Bridge. Building bridges was a hazardous job, often having to be done under shellfire.

Tunis fell and we carried on to Cap Bon. We moved into a field where we were told that we didn’t need to dig in as we were out of range of the enemy artillery. No sooner had we settled in, when shells started coming in thick and fast. The digging of slit trenches, for cover to get in, was made in record time. Our commanding officer Major Blankansee lost a foot in the shelling, and another officer Lt. Moss a Bedford man was killed in this action. The fighting in North Africa came to an end, and with it a great sense of relief.

The Division then spent time on rest and recuperation around Sousse. It was on my 21st birthday, June 5th, and we were in convoy moving to Sousse. I was driving a 3 ton Bedford truck, with Sgt Alan Single sitting beside me, when I started to feel ill. I had to ask Alan if he could take over and drive the truck for me. Alan came from Sandy, living in the same road and just a few doors from my home. He took over the driving until we reached our destination, with numerous stops for me to go to the toilet as I was stricken with dysentry, I was taken in to hospital.This was crowded with soldiers also suffering from this terrible illness. It left you feeling so weak, as you lost so much weight. What a way to spend your 21st Birthday! Dysentry was caused by flies. There were thousands of them in North Africa. They settled on your food, got up your nose and made life most uncomfortable. The only way you could get any peace and quiet from them was to retreat into your tent and under the mosquito net.

The Division was then called upon to take the island of Pantelleria. This lay between North Africa and Sicily.The Germans had been using it to attack our shipping. We were expected to have 90% casualties taking this island. Fortunately for us the Germans had left, and so apart from casualties from air raids, all went well. We were then relieved by a holding unit, and returned to Sousse. Our sister company, the 23 Field Company, were unlucky to hit a mine when returning to North Africa and suffered many casualties.

After returning to Tunisia we caught up with training with us getting days in Tunis, Hammamet and Nabuel on leave. It was during this period that I had to suffer having eleven teeth extracted. They were taken out in two sessions, the first time six were removed and then five. The dentist did a fine job, but my troubles were not over, as we were still on hard tack biscuits and my mouth was very sore. However, our cooks managed to soften the biscuits up somehow and I was able to swallow something. It was then decided, that we had had enough rest and recuperation, and so we were on the move once again.

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